


if i should die (i will have never truly lived)

by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Series: Tumblr Requests [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman Incorporated (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Batman Incorporated Issue 08, Depression, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson Whump, Dick Grayson-centric, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Reckless behaviors, Self-Hatred, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23498461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds
Summary: In the aftermath, Dick spirals.It’s a thing anyone who truly knows him notices. He doesn’t grieve in stages, as most do, he grieves in behaviors. It’s a pattern engrained in misery, marinated in tears, and sautéed in his pain.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Series: Tumblr Requests [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690783
Comments: 27
Kudos: 256





	if i should die (i will have never truly lived)

**Author's Note:**

> Short response to a request on my tumblr for Dick + Hunger. I figure I'll post them here too, just in case you guys don't follow me there!

In the aftermath, Dick spirals.

It’s a thing anyone who truly knows him notices. He doesn’t grieve in stages, as most do, he grieves in behaviors. It’s a pattern engrained in misery, marinated in tears, and sautéed in his pain.

It didn’t start with his parents, it started with Jason.

And now, Damian…

_Damian_ …

_“We were the best, Richard…”_

A lone corpse on a field of his mother’s making, a single weapon impaled in a child’s chest as his clone stares on and _on_.

“ _I’ll always love you in my own way,”_ Talia al Ghul had claimed, “ _And I will permit you to leave with your circus boy in tow. But from now on, you may consider yourself an **enemy** of the **House of al Ghul**._”

And Dick had watched as Damian didn’t cry, didn’t frown, or look the least bit concerned.

“ _Very well,”_ Dick’s Robin had replied, “ _I hope I can be a **worthy** one, Mother.”_

What kind of Mother can order the _death_ of her own child?

Damian is…

_Damian_ …

Stage One, for him, is carelessness.

He jumps a bit faster than he should, a moment of calculation and precision that has saved his life countless times, ignored for the mere thrill of falling.

He isn’t as thorough in his stakeouts, preferring to find out when his fists meet flesh instead of finding out through observation alone. He’s cruel, sometimes. Angry, always.

He takes on more criminals than he should, running to the point beyond exhaustion, beyond near misses and barely dodged bullets, until something strikes.

Sometimes it’s a bullet, sometimes it’s Slade Wilson pissed off for ruining another contract. This time it had been Joker, and his mad ramblings and deep incisions only left Dick hollow, falling to the next stage.

Stage Two is sleep deprivation.

The death, or his conjuration of it, haunts his dreams and his nightmares. He sees ~~Damian~~ _them_ in every memory, every corner of his cramped apartment and every rooftop along the night skyline. He drinks at first, drinks until he forgets, but even then he dreams, wakes screaming until his throat is hoarse and his eyes run out of tears.

When the alcohol stops working, stops giving him brief reprieve from the sad shithole that is his head, he stops sleeping. It’s a slow process, all-nighters scattered here, three-hour naps with about an hour of restful-ish sleep there, until the hours turn into _days_ , and the _days_ turn into _weeks_.

By the time he’s constantly swaying on his feet, drinking enough coffee that _Tim_ would be concerned, the hallucinations start.

Sometimes he sees random, unrelated things, not scary, just confusing.

Most of the time he sees his parents falling, Jason being beaten by a crowbar, Donna’s eyes filling with tears as the clone cuts through her heart with heat vision, Bruce fading into time, Lian blowing up alone and afraid, Damian…

When the hallucinations start, he moves onto the next stage, just as careless, just as tired, and still feeling the knives stab through his chest each time he draws breath.

Stage Three is rage.

Blinding, _mind altering,_ all-encompassing rage.

He rages against anyone and anything, from his friends, to his family, to the smallest criminal to hit the wrong button.

He’s a livewire humming, waiting for a spark.

He’s a ticking time bomb counting down, clenching and glaring and so _furious_ he doesn’t know what to do with it.

He feels it deep in his soul, corroding and poisoning, _strengthening_ ….

He kills the Heretic without hesitation when he finds the monster at Talia’s side, nearly kills Talia too. Would have, if not for Ra’s and Jason. They pull him off, tell him he’s even with her now, for her slight, her _betrayal_... _~~but nothing could possibly equal Damian’s life, not even her own. Dick isn’t afraid of Ra’s, isn’t weary of Batman. He won’t rest until that **bitch** is dead and forgotten.~~_

_~~~~ _

Everyone watches him spiral at this point, he makes it well known with his anger and his pain and his inability to bottle anything up anymore. He lashes out, and they watch, and they listen, but they never stop him.

Everyone lets him self-destruct, because deep down, they know just like he knows, that he deserves it.

Stage Four is bodily deprivation, or self-punishment.

Before, his injuries and mistakes and inability to take care of himself came from a place of inattentiveness, recklessness, but now…

Now when he sees Damian’s face, bludgeoned and bloodied by a clone created by his _bastard_ of a mother, he stops eating. If he eats, his body rejects it. He doesn’t get hungry, even if he feels the pain and rumbles of it.

Now when he hears the name _Robin_ , and sees the cape cover its owner’s corpse, he jumps off buildings until he collapses, until he doesn’t stick a landing, and sometimes he still continues.

Now when he hears Talia al Ghul’s voice in his dreams or his nightmares, he seeks out fights. Sometimes in bars, sometimes on the streets… He doesn’t stop when his fists are bloody, and his face is bruised. He never really stops.

When he is hungry with no appetite, bloody with no pain, and broken without trying, he doesn’t move on to the next stage.

There is no Stage Five, no equivalence to the stage where acceptance was supposed to occur.

He doesn’t accept it.

He doesn’t move on.

He holds onto that pain until all he feels is pain. He lets it consume him, lets it _destroy_ him. If he’s still breathing by Stage Five, he’s numb enough to live with it, and fake a smile so no one worries.

_~~Damian’s dead, and Dick’s half-way there himself. By the time the family comes together, Dick’s corpse is buried next to Damian’s. There is no acceptance, there is no relief. There is only pain.~~ _

_~~~~ _

_~~It’s a good thing Dick’s numb to his own by now.~~ _ ~~~~


End file.
